After being imprisoned since December 2019, Rakesh Wadhawan and Sarang Wadhawan, father and son, were released from Arthur Road Jail on Wednesday. They were granted bail by the Bombay High Court on April 5, citing trial delays and their prolonged imprisonment as grounds for their release.
But the HC observed that running a system is a collective responsibility. The HC said the prosecuting agency has the "onerous responsibility" to remain "vigilant" and if their case is not progressed (due to pendency), they are "not remedyless". They can approach the Principal Judge of the Session court to assign a case to another court. "The defence counsel also has a role to play," said Justice S M Modak while granting bail to father son duo Rakesh and Sarang Wadhawan, promoters of a real estate company in the PMC Bank fraud and money laundering cases.
Earlier this year, a PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act) court had declined to extend Rakesh Wadhawan’s plea for medical bail, which had been granted by the Supreme Court. The Wadhawans, who were apprehended in October 2019, had approached the High Court in 2023 seeking bail after a special court had rejected their plea. They invoked section 436A of the Criminal Procedure Code, which allows for release from custody if more than half of the maximum sentence prescribed for the offence has been served.
The Economic Offences Wing of the Mumbai Police had registered an offence on September 30, 2019, in connection with the alleged fraud at PMC Bank, a multi-state cooperative bank with 137 branches across six states.
According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), PMC Bank had concealed 44 problematic loan accounts amounting to ₹7,457.49 crore, primarily extended to HDIL, by manipulating its core banking system. Furthermore, the bank had created 21,049 fictitious accounts to reconcile its master data with the loan disbursals. The Enforcement Directorate had subsequently registered a case against the duo based on the EOW case.